The Amazing Surgery Connoisseur and Ash's Appendicitis
by Silver Arctic Wolf
Summary: Ash gets appendicitis and needs surgery. There's only one problem: He and his friends are in the middle of the woods, far away from civilization. Fortunately, there's one hope for Ash: His buddy Cilan is a surgery connoisseur! With help from Dr. Brock and Iris, will Cilan be able to perform the surgery to save Ash? "It's operation time!"


_Here's another Pokémon parody. It's a crazy romp through a precarious situation and thus the style is pretty similar to my other story,_ The Amazing Science Scuffle at Team Rocket Base. _Content-wise, I don't think there's anything too bad. It contains a surgery, but I don't go into any gruesome details here, so most people should be fine (probably)._

* * *

 **The Amazing Surgery Connoisseur and Ash's Appendicitis**

On a bright and sunny day, three trainers and their Pokémon were traveling through the heart of a dense forest, hundreds of miles away from civilization.

"Hey, a wild Caterpie! Alright, I just can't get enough of raising them into Butterfrees, releasing them into the wild, then crying about it for weeks!" Ash said. "Alright! I'm gonna catch it!" He brandished a Pokéball.

Iris shrugged and sighed. "What a little kid!"

Cilan wagged his finger at Ash. "Now, Ash: That Caterpie wouldn't make a very tasty entrée. Why don't you try some of this instead?" Cilan said as he pulled out canned food from his pack. "You won't be able to believe it's not Butterfree!"

Iris paled. "It's imitation bug meat? That's really gross."

Cilan now wagged his finger at Iris. "Now Iris, you should know better than to judge things by their appearances. It has a marvelous and exquisite texture and taste that only a connoisseur can truly appreciate. I won't force you to try it, but you'll be missing out."

Meanwhile, Ash had opened the can and taken a bite of it. As he chewed, he said, "This is great! And you're right! I really can't believe it's not Butterfree!" He brandished his Pokéball again while Iris gagged. "But I'm still gonna catch that Caterpie!" He raised the Pokéball, but froze mid-throw.

"Ash?" Cilan said as he donned a concerned mien.

"Pika-pi?" Pikachu, perched on Ash's shoulder, took a glance at Ash's face and saw a horrible grimace written there. "Pika-pi!"

"Waaaah!" Ash cried out. He clamped his hands over his lower abdomen and started rolling around on the grass.

"What a little kid!" Iris admonished.

"No, Iris! I think there's really something wrong with him!" Cilan said.

"What?" Iris took a more careful look at Ash. "It was probably that weird imitation Butterfree stuff you fed him."

Cilan shook his head. "I don't think so. I've been eating it all week and I'm fine." He kneeled down beside Ash and put a hand on his back. "Are you in pain, Ash?"

"It hurts a whole bunch!" Ash cried out.

"What? Seriously?" Iris said in a panicky voice. "What are we going to do?"

Looker poked his head out from a nearby bush. He noted Ash's writhing and said, "Your friend looks like he could be in serious trouble."

"What are you doing hiding in that bush?" Cilan asked.

"I'm here waiting to ambush Team Plasma… Er, I mean… I'm here observing nature." His head disappeared back into the bush.

"Hmm…" Cilan snapped his fingers. "We should call a doctor and get a prognosis and a treatment plan!"

So while Ash writhed on the ground in agony, Cilan and Iris dialed up Brock.

"Wait a minute. Isn't Brock a Pokémon doctor?" asked Iris. "Can he really help us here?"

Cilan chuckled. "Oh, Iris, you sweet, innocent, naïve child! A doctor is a doctor, through and through, and Pokémon doctors and human doctors are entirely interchangeable. Pokémon and people are the same when it comes to ailments and maladies."

"Whoa! Hold on! That doesn't make any sense! There are over a thousand Pokémon, and they're all really different from each other and from people. They probably all get different sicknesses and stuff than each other and from people, so it doesn't make sense that a Pokémon doctor would be able to treat people, too!"

A voice on the phone answered. "Well, by that reasoning the idea of a Pokémon doctor doesn't make much sense either." It was Brock, who had finally answered their call. "It would be more likely for a doctor to specialize in only one or a few types of Pokémon since all Pokémon are so different from each other."

"Fair enough," Iris said.

"Anyway, I've seen a human doctor help save Pokémon, so I can probably do the opposite. There's really no need to worry!"

"Shh! Don't say those words!" Iris said. She and Cilan cast nervous glances around the forest, but all was quiet except for some Kakuna bullying a group of Metapods. Iris exhaled. "She's not here. At least, not yet."

"Sorry," Brock said. "Anyway, could you tell me what Ash's symptoms are?"

Cilan put his finger under his lip and observed Ash's writhing for a while. "He seems to have nausea and extreme lower abdominal pain."

"Not good. It looks like he might have appendicitis," Brock said.

"What!" Iris exclaimed. "Can little kids like him even get appendicitis?"

"Of course. And in Ash's case, you have to remember that even though he's only ten years old, he's been traveling for over ten years."

So what should we do, Brock?" Cilan asked.

"You have to get him to a hospital right away!"

Cilan scratched his cheek. "Uh… I'm afraid that isn't possible. We're in the middle of the wilderness and it would take at least a week of walking to get to a town."

"Oh no!" Brock said. "If he really has appendicitis and maybe even a ruptured appendix, he needs surgery right away. If only there were a way to find out his condition…"

Cilan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Indeed. Not knowing how serious this is makes it difficult for us to take the appropriate action. Not a very delectable dilemma."

"The future is now, thanks to science!" Clemont leapt out from the bushes with a huge grin on his face. "Clemontic Gear, on!" He summoned forth his Luxray from its Pokéball and then put a visor on it that was in turn hooked up to a metallic, cylindrical machine. "Heh heh heh! I thought we would encounter a situation precisely like this one, which is why I made this device that uses Luxray's eyes to take pictures of people's insides, just like an X-ray, MRI, or CAT scan, only better! I call it my Lux-ray machine!"

Between his sobs and moans, Ash managed to yell out, "Science is so amazing!"

"Where did this weirdo come from?" Iris wondered as she watched Clemont working his machine.

Clemont's device worked perfectly, and pretty soon they were faxing the pictures to Brock with another of Clemont's inventions. That device wasn't so swell and exploded, but not before the pictures had been scanned and sent.

"Oh no…" Brock said. "It's just as I feared. He needs to be operated on right away to have his appendix removed or he could be in serious trouble."

"What? But how are we going to get him to a hospital so they can do that?" Iris went into a panic and started running around in circles and pulling on her hair. Pikachu, in an even worse panic, was right behind her.

Clemont turned pale. "Ooooh... I can't handle stressful situations very well…" He clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Heh heh heh!" laughed Cilan as he donned a confident and somewhat conceited grin. He wagged his finger at Iris and Clemont. "No need to panic. You see, I am a surgery connoisseur!"

"Not another one of your dumb hobbies! They can't help us here!" Iris yelled as she continued running in circles.

Cilan ignored Iris and continued. "I've watched over a hundred surgery exhibitions and I've become quite an expert on all things surgery!"

"What?" Iris exclaimed incredulously. "Just because you've watched surgeries doesn't mean you can perform one! And it's not like you have a surgeon's license!"

"No, but I do have a surgery connoisseur license." Cilan flashed his license to Iris and Clemont. Then he wagged his finger and said, "And I've done more than just watch. I've immersed myself in surgery! I've learned everything one could need to know, even going so far as to partake of simulated surgeries, the most palatable of pastimes!"

"This is great news!" Brock said. "If you just follow my instructions, we can get this surgery done."

"You're really on board with this? This is crazy!" Iris exclaimed.

"I agree!" Clemont said. He retched after he said it, but managed to hold it in.

Cilan cast his gaze to the sky and spread his arms wide behind him as though to give a hug to the world. As he spun in a circle, he exclaimed, "It's operation time!" He put on his surgical mask, apron and gloves, then turned to Iris and Clemont. "Alright, I'll need you two to be my assistants. First, you need to get my instruments, Iris. They're inside my pack, alongside my model train sets and detective paraphernalia."

As Iris dug through Cilan's backpack, a look of dismay came over her. "Ahhh! How did you fit all this stuff in here? And where are the surgery instruments?"

"There isn't anything unusual about the amount of stuff I'm carrying. It isn't as though I put something as ludicrous as a bicycle in there," Cilan said, scoffing at Iris.

"But you have tables and chairs and pots in here! Hey, wait! There is a bicycle in here, next to your fishing rod!"

Cilan stroked his chin. "Oh, right. I forgot about it since I could never get it out. It was always telling me, 'You can't use that here,' whenever I tried to ride it."

"Oh, I think I found them. Is this it?" Iris pulled out a box filled with pointy instruments. "But will these be clean enough? Don't surgical instruments need to be sterile or something?"

"Not to worry: There is a sanitizing solution in there that will sterilize all of them. Now, both of you put on your masks and gloves and prep the patient."

Iris and Clemont did as Cilan said and managed to get Ash onto a stretcher they'd found in Cilan's bag, but while Cilan was sterilizing the equipment, a new problem became apparent from Ash's continued screaming and writhing.

"Cilan, what are we going to do about Ash? Don't we need to put him under anesthesia for a surgery?" asked Iris.

"Uh oh…" Cilan said.

"Uh oh? Don't tell me you don't have anything for that!"

Cilan sighed, then explained, "Well, it isn't exactly legal to carry anesthetics around." He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "What to do?" Then he kneeled down next to Ash. "Say Ash, just imagine all the excruciating pain from your surgery as a challenge, okay?"

"A challenge? I love challenges!"

In response to Cilan's request, Ash kept still and braced himself as Cilan prepared to make an incision. But as Cilan started the cut into Ash's side, Ash yelled out in pain and started rolling around again.

"This isn't going to work," Cilan said. "Pikachu, please knock Ash out with a thunderbolt."

"Chuuuuu!" Pikachu shot a stream of electricity at Ash until the boy was unconscious.

"Alright, you two," Cilan said to Clemont and Iris, "Let's begin in earnest now."

Cilan made a big incision and blood started pouring out. When Iris and Clemont saw Ash's insides, they both turned pale and started feeling woozy. Clemont fainted straight away. "Oh my…" Iris muttered before tipping over backwards and joining Clemont on the forest floor.

"Tsk! Well, those two turned out to be useless!" Cilan said, shaking his head. "But what am I going to do? I can't exactly perform a surgery without an assistant!" He turned his gaze to the bush Looker was hiding in. "Hey, Looker, would you lend a hand here?"

Looker stuck his hand out and waved. "Er… no. I've got to stay here in this bush," he said sheepishly. "And don't worry. I'll, uh… I'll keep my gaze in this direction, with my back to you and your surgery, to make sure that no evil teams come to interrupt!"

"He's afraid to look at a surgery, too? What now?" He glanced around at the trees in the forest. "Um… Maybe… If only there were no need to worry?"

"No need to worry!" Dawn leapt out from the shadows of a big tree and landed next to Cilan.

Cilan exhaled. "Sure are a lot of people creeping around these woods," he noted. "But more importantly, you're not afraid of blood and guts, are you?"

"No need to worry!" Dawn replied, giving a confident grin and thumbs-up. Her knees wobbled and a bead of sweat appeared on her forehead when she looked down at the incision, but she managed to keep her cool. "No need to worry!" she said again in a more subdued tone.

"Great! Then let's begin this operation!"

Through a grueling series of cuts and maneuvers, all supervised by Brock and assisted by Dawn, Cilan was able to remove Ash's appendix.

When it was over, Dawn handed Cilan a towel and he wiped the sweat from his brow. Then he stuck the appendix in a dish and sealed it up. "Whew! Alright, now let's close him up before the forest air contaminates him."

Ash drifted into consciousness and saw the appendix in the clear container. "Wait, don't I need that to live?" he asked in a dazed voice.

"No need to worry!" Dawn assured him.

"She's right, Ash. The appendix serves no known function and people get along perfectly fine without them."

"Ooooh…" Ash passed back into unconsciousness.

Once they'd stitched Ash back up and disinfected and bandaged the wound, Cilan and Dawn tore off their surgical outfits and stored everything disposable in a biohazard bag, which Cilan stowed away in his backpack, to be dealt with when they reached a proper disposal facility. After they'd cleaned all the knives and other instruments used, it looked like they were done.

"Great. Now if we can just get Ash to a hospital, he should make a full recovery!" Brock said over the phone.

"No need to worry!" Dawn said with a thumbs-up.

"No easy feat, but I think we can manage," said Cilan.

Iris and Clemont began to stir. "Uhhh… what happened?" Iris asked as she awoke.

"The surgery was a success. Such a shame you missed all of it," Cilan said.

Iris and Clemont both grew pallid thinking about what they'd seen before passing out. "I think I'm good with that," Iris said. She put a hand over her mouth and retched, but managed to keep from throwing up. The same cannot be said for Clemont, who was soon puking at the base of a redwood tree.

"Alright, so let's just carry Ash on this stretcher to the hospital so they can get him some antibiotics and stuff," Iris said after Cilan had got her up to speed. She knelt down beside Ash.

"Not so fast!" a voice rang out through the woods.

Officer Jenny stepped into the clearing and blew a whistle. "I saw what just happened here! Do any of you have surgical licenses?"

"Well, no," Cilan said. "But there really wasn't a choice. Ash's life was in danger, so I had to operate. And it looks like he's going to be alright."

"I'm going to have to arrest you for performing an illegal surgery."

"What? Come on. Surely Good Samaritan laws apply here," protested Cilan.

"I don't know about that. It was kind of excessive and dangerous," Iris murmured.

"I don't know what kind of Pokémon Samaritan is, but it can't help you now. I'm taking you back to the station." She cuffed Cilan, then looked to the rest of the kids. "Did all of you help, too?"

"No need to worry!" Dawn said with a nod.

"Don't admit it!" Iris cried out.

Officer Jenny cuffed Clemont, Iris, and Dawn, and even Pikachu.

"J-J-Jail? I'm going to jail? Oh, no. I'm not feeling so well." Clemont turned green and looked like he might throw up again. When he'd recovered from his retching, he said, "Wait! Wouldn't you rather arrest my robot, Clembot? This was really all his idea." It was nothing but a desperate ploy to escape. Surely not even Officer Jenny was dumb enough to arrest a robot, a mere construct with no agency of its own and clearly not subject to laws.

"I'll arrest him next as an accessory and interrogate him," Officer Jenny assured Clemont, shocking everyone with her incompetence, but also disappointing them by not being gullible enough to let them go.

"Ahh! This is so ridiculous!" Iris roared. "Why are we the ones being arrested when Team Rocket is hiding in that thicket over there?" Iris pointed a finger at some shrubs, prompting Jesse, James, and Meowth to let out loud yelps. Nervously, they stepped out of the bushes with their hands held up in surrender.

"You must think I'm stupid, young lady!" Officer Jenny proclaimed. "Why, everyone knows Team Rocket wears black uniforms! I'm certain those three suspicious individuals hiding in that thicket and spying on us are good and proper citizens just minding their own business, and definitely not members of Team Rocket waiting for us to leave so that they can swipe all of that unconscious boy's Pokémon."

Team Rocket breathed a sigh of relief. They were glad they had worn their white uniforms that day instead of the black ones they wore for much of their time in Unova. "Well, have a good day, officer!" Jesse said. The three of them snickered and then skedaddled before Officer Jenny could change her mind.

"No!" Iris moaned. "Hold on, don't you have their wanted posters from the first season in your backpack, Cilan? Get them out!"

"My hands are kind of tied up right now," Cilan said. "Besides, those are collector's items! Do you know how hard it was to obtain them? I could never hand them over! But still, there has to be some way to get us out of this mess… " Cilan snapped his fingers. "Hold on! We were being supervised by a doctor and an international police officer was watching over us the whole time. Surely that counts for something?"

They all could hear Brock squealing and gushing over the phone about Jenny, but they ignored him and instead their gazes were all drawn to the bush where Looker was hiding. Officer Jenny tapped her finger against her forehead. "International Police? But they never got our department's approval to be out here. If this is an unsanctioned operation, I'd have to arrest him, too."

Looker blanched. "Uh oh!" He threw a smoke bomb, cried out, "You'll never take me alive!" and then he jumped out of the bush and dashed off into the woods.

"Hey!" Jenny cried out. But the astonished kids and police officer were caught up in the smoke and fell into coughing fits. By the time they'd escaped the cloud of the smoke, Looker was long gone. Officer Jenny shrugged. "Oh well. I guess he got away."

"Can't run after him through the jungle in your high heels, huh?" Iris murmured. "Or are you worried you'll mess up your makeup?"

"I don't need to take any flak from you, young lady," Officer Jenny scolded.

"Now, Iris, let's try not to make the nice police officer angry!" Cilan said with a nervous smile.

"I'm just saying, it's not really appropriate for a police officer to-"

Officer Jenny pulled out a rope, one of the few things she was adept with, and snapped it in her hands. "I can always add a few years onto your sentences."

"Never mind! Forget everything I said!" Iris said, properly cowed by Officer Jenny's threats and lassoing skills.

Officer Jenny started to lead the band of lawbreakers off, but as she did, Iris cast her gaze to Ash, who was still lying on the stretcher on the ground. "Hey, wait!"

Officer Jenny sighed. "What now?"

"What about our friend?" Iris asked.

"Well, he didn't help with the illegal surgery, and I can't arrest him for lying on the forest floor. Or can I…?" She pulled out her police handbook and flipped through it. "No, it doesn't look like that qualifies as littering." She closed the handbook, a disappointed look on her face.

"Yeah, but he's sick, so he needs to get to a hospital! You can't just leave him lying in the woods in his condition!"

"Miss, do I look like an ambulance to you?" Officer Jenny raised an eyebrow.

"So call one!" Iris said furiously.

Jenny promptly snapped her lassoing rope again to get Iris to quiet down. After that, Jenny just clicked her tongue and shook her head, then continued leading the band toward the police car she'd parked on the forest road.

"There was a road here?" said Cilan, having misjudged their position on the map.

Meanwhile, Brock's voice was still calling out from the cellphone Cilan had dropped. "Don't worry guys, I called an ambulance for Ash! They'll send in a helicopter, and… Wait, why didn't we do that to begin with…? Oh, never mind! I'm flying in to meet you all at the police house! Wait for me, Jenny!"

Brock arrived at the police station the next day, but was arrested the same as everyone else for his involvement in the crime. The next three months were a difficult uphill legal battle. For Clembot, that is. As soon as the robot arrived at the station in cuffs and was thrown in their cell, Clemont came up with a brilliant plan.

"I thought we would encounter a situation precisely like this one! That's why I came up with this amazing snippet of code to make Clembot take the fall!" So Clemont set to work putting in all the parameters for their situation until he had succeeded in reprogramming Clembot to say that he had coerced the rest of them into operating on Ash.

"Computer and robotics science is so amazing!" Ash cried out. After he had recovered at the hospital, he had come to the police station to visit his friends. He was currently the only one not behind the bars of the holding cell.

Iris shrugged. "It isn't really that impressive. All that new code does is make Clembot say he did it. His whole speech is even hardcoded in."

"Wow, Iris," Cilan said. "You sound like you know what you're talking about. It's kind of strange, since you dropped out of Opelucid Academy before you could finish your education."

Iris turned scarlet. "Well, you know. You pick up lots of things on the streets and traveling in the wilderness. Real-life experience beats school learning, and the basics of computer programming aren't really that difficult, you know, especially for someone as smart as me!"

Cilan narrowed his eyes. "You've been looking through my hobbyist's guidebooks again, haven't you?" He sifted through his backpack for the missing book. For some reason, Officer Jenny had let Cilan keep the bag for his stay in the cell and the contents had provided some amusement to everyone as they tried to whittle away their time behind bars.

"Well, yeah. And the fishing ones are really boring, by the way."

"And done!" Clemont said as he took care of the finishing touches.

Iris grabbed the bars of the cell and put her face between the bars. "Officer Jenny!" she cried out. "Our robot wants to confess! And robots definitely have agency and can't lie, so you should believe everything he says!"

Officer Jenny took Clembot off to the interrogation room. When she returned, she said, "Looks like this was all the work of that robot. I guess the rest of you are free to go."

"You can lock me up anytime, Officer Jenny," Brock gushed.

"Yeah, whatever you weirdo," Officer Jenny said. "Get out of here before I arrest you again."

Ash and Dawn grabbed Brock's arms and got him out of there before he could get them all into even more trouble.

So, Ash's appendix was safely removed, his friends were freed, and they were all able to return to their travels. Clembot, unfortunately, was tried and convicted on four charges of armed coercion, one charge of impersonating a surgeon, and one charge of attempted murder. He is rusting away in a jail cell to this day. But that's okay, because Clemont built a new Clembot to replace him, one with a clean legal record.


End file.
